Chu declines to apologize for Solyndra

Energy Secretary Steven Chu rebuffed Republican criticisms and declined to apologize Thursday for approving a $535 million loan guarantee to the now-bankrupt solar firm Solyndra, instead stressing that the company’s collapse was “extremely unfortunate.”

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) asked Chu at a hearing Thursday whether he should apologize for approving the loan.

“Who has to apologize for the half a billion dollars in taxpayer money that’s out the door?” Upton asked.

Chu responded: “Well, it is extremely unfortunate what has happened with Solyndra. Was there incompetence? Was there any influence of a political nature? I would have to say no.”

{mosads}Chu said the Energy Department couldn’t have predicted that the cost of solar panels would drop, driving Solyndra and other solar manufacturers toward financial collapse.

“This company and several others got caught in a very, very bad tsunami,” Chu said.

Asked how much of the $535 million taxpayers will be able to recover, Chu said, “That remains to be seen. Not very much.”

Lawmakers asked Chu if he would approve the loan guarantee again, knowing what he knows now.

“Certainly knowing what I know now, we would say ‘no,’” Chu said. “But you don’t make decisions by fast-forwarding two years in the future. I wish I could do that.”

Chu testified Thursday in front of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which has launched a months-long investigation of Solyndra, a California-based solar panel manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy in September after laying off 1,100 workers.

The Energy Department sought to get out in front of the hearing this week.

Chu previewed his testimony in an interview with NPR earlier this week and the department released excerpts of the secretary’s prepared remarks Wednesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera launched a Twitter account this week just in time to combat Republican attacks.

Republicans criticized Chu at the hearing for approving the loan guarantee in 2009 and agreeing to restructure the loan in February.

“The number of red flags about Solyndra that were raised along the way — many from within DOE — and either ignored or minimized by senior officials is astonishing,” Upton said.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) blasted the Energy Department’s management of the loan guarantee.

“I’ve been on this committee for 25 years, rarely if ever, to put it positively, have I seen a more mismanaged program than the Solyndra loan guarantee,” Barton said.

Chu, surrounded by about a dozen photographers, calmly answered lawmakers’ questions Thursday.

He took full responsibility for approving the loan and restructuring it in February.

“As the secretary of Energy, the final decisions on Solyndra were mine, and I made them with the best interest of the taxpayer in mind,” Chu said.

But Chu insisted that the decision was not influenced by politics, as House Republicans have alleged.

“I want to be clear: Over the course of Solyndra’s loan guarantee, I did not make any decision based on political considerations,” he said, adding that campaign contributions to President Obama from investors in the company “played no role” in the loan guarantee approval.

Democrats on the committee blasted Republicans for their focus on the Solyndra loan guarantee, arguing it was an effort to score political points.

“Instead of conducting a serious inquiry into the facts regarding Solyndra and lessons we can learn from this case, the majority to date has focused on firing partisan broadsides at the Obama administration,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (Colo.), the top Democrat on the subcommittee.

— This story was updated at noon.